Is commission competition alive and well? Answer is still unclear — See Real Estate Broker’s Insider’s most recent roundup of commission trends.
...

Opendoor raises big money from investors — Opendoor, the iBuyer platform that promises to revolutionize home selling, in June raised $325 million to expand its business. Watch Opendoor’s television ad targeted at sellers.
...

Homes.com President David Mele says agents aren’t going away any time soon. But he predicts agents who don’t embrace technology are in danger. Mele puts a new twist on the long-standing fear that real estate agents could go the way of travel agents. That hasn’t happened, but he sees tech-savvy agents prospering and others disappearing.…To read more — login/sign up

In an unusual use of criminal charges in a dispute over property disclosures, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) arrested two agents and the sellers of a home, accusing them of fraud in the sale of a house with sinkhole property damage. The arrests stem from the $275,000 sale of a house in Florida’s…To read more — login/sign up

In a ruling that might pave the way for brokers to set tougher contracts with agents, a Florida judge sided with a broker who accused a former agent of violating a non-compete agreement. Shelly Gibson worked for five years as an agent at Signature Real Estate Cos. She handled sales and rentals at Kings Point…To read more — login/sign up

Granny flats gain acceptance in pricey cities — With housing affordability a challenge in many markets, one alternative is mini-houses or granny flats. Learn about the history and current use of granny flats....

It was the sort of recruiting raid that’s routine in the real estate industry: In March 2015, 11 agents and a manager from Douglas Elliman’s office in Armonk, NY, abruptly resigned. The agents defected to the William Raveis Real Estate office across the street. What happened next, however, was anything but ordinary. Douglas Elliman sued…To read more — login/sign up

The nation’s 70 largest Realtor organizations collected $672 million in revenue in 2016, and they paid their CEOs nearly $24 million. That’s according to Real Estate Broker’s Insider’s analysis of tax returns filed by national, state, and regional associations. Most organizations’ 2016 returns were made public during the first quarter of 2018. Real Estate Broker’s Insider analyzed…To read more — login/sign up

Realtors associations collect more revenue, average CEO pay stays the same — The nation’s 70 largest Realtor organizations collected $672 million in revenue in 2016, and they paid their CEOs nearly $24 million. See our interactive graphic showing revenue and compensation for 71 large Realtor associations.
...

Home prices in many cities hit new records — Median home prices in 57 of 105 large metro areas rose above their pre-recession peaks in the first quarter of 2018, according to ATTOM Data Solutions. See where your metro area ranks....

In a long-anticipated move that has roiled the real estate industry and perplexed Wall Street, Zillow announced an ambitious expansion of its pilot program to buy and sell homes. Seeking to reassure the brokerage industry, which has chafed at Zestimates and groused about Zillow’s advertising practices, Zillow says it will use local agents to transact…To read more — login/sign up